help! my seq is dead!

Testing/Troubleshooting
1

hi.. i know the topic doesn’t quite explain what the problem is, but the fact is that i don’t know what the problem is either :wink:

i made a test setup of my sequencer, with 2 lcd’s 1 din and ofcourse a core.. everything worked alright, so i decided it was time to mount everything in a case (in my case, mount the buttons/lcd’s/encoders on top of a sheet of metal and screw the rest of the boards underneath it, untill i had a proper case)

so i did, and after a few days of hard work it’s done, but now my setup doesn’t show any signs of life!  :cry:

there’s not even a midi message on startup, the lcd’s don’t work, nothing.

i am a bit scared that i messed up my pic in the process of mounting everything.. could this be? i probably have some shorts here and there (on the interconnections between boards/lcds, not on the boards themselves), but can that result in a pic not putting out *anything* on powerup?

also i’d like to measure some voltages on the boards, but i’m scared i might mess up things even more by accidentally short-circuiting things.

at what points will i measure voltages on the core to see if my pic is still alive? could it be that it’s not my pic that’s causing this behaviour?

please help me out.

2

gosh. forgot to mention i’m a total newbie. i disconnected the din’s and now it’s working..

::slight_smile:

oh well. :wink:

3

instead of opening a new thread with new troubles i’ll just stick it in here, hoping someone will read it :wink:

i’m having some weird behaviour with my lcd and din’s now.

  • my lcd displays weird random characters, with some of the original message partly there sometimes, this wasn’t the case earlier today

  • my din’s don’t seem to work like they should..

when i hook up only the first 2 dins, the display lights up and i get a party messed up startup screen

when i only hook up the first one, i don’t get anything when i power up. (about the scenario i descibed in the first post.

could anyone enlighten me on the way this works? why does my lcd ‘respond’ to how many din’s i have connected, and why is it in an unlogical manner?

and ofcourse, what’s the quickest way to a working mbseq from here? :wink:

i have kind of spoiled my credits i believe by starting topics wich i figure out 5 minutes later.. but i guess everybody has to start somewhere.  ::slight_smile:

please help me out cause i’m absolutely puzzled..

4

Sometimes they will act this way if you are using an AC power pack and a metal/non-isolated jack to connect it.  More info about your power supply please!  :slight_smile:

Best

Smash

5

ahh..

well, i’m using a standard external ac/dc 9v 700mA.. i guess the jack that goes into my power-bus is isolated (i mean it isn’t metal, but plasticcy)

btw i solved the lcd troubles, it was (as always) a loose wire on the core, so no big deal..

i’m still stuck on the din thing though..

6

maybe you forgot to sold a bridges on a din module?

or that could probably be a short (maybe between a leg of a led and the terminal of a buton in your case, or some metal part)…

7

i found out the cause of the problem: on the non-working board, i mounted the shiftregisters in the sockets the other way around.

i got sent 2 brands of registers, one with the little ‘dot’ on one side, and one with the little dot on the other side.. i got mixed up.. so stupid to find out it is something so small after a full day of cursing at your non-working setup :wink:

it’s working now, except for 1 din, the last one. i know it should be something in the way i hooked up to the ‘second’ one in the row, or with the shift registers. is it necessary to remove unused shiftregisters? or perhaps should i connect certain unused pins to ground?

is it necessary to ground encoders and buttons to the board they are actually connected to? so for instance, i have encoders of step 1-12 connected to DIN2, and 13-16 to DIN3, will i need to connect the ground of steps 13-16 to the DIN3 board? if i’m informed right this doesn’t matter, but maybe it does?

a little addition to the problem: when i turn the step 16 encoder, the second lcd displays a bunch of ‘new’ notes. it’s quite unexplainable. also the note changes, for some strange reason, while the others don’t respond at all. any idea what this could mean? :slight_smile:

also, totally off topic; moxi.. would you mind if i email or message you regarding your ‘fabrication de boutons’? :wink: i’m quite interested in how you did it. :slight_smile:

8

about button:

i will explain all what you need to know, i plan to do a new tutorial but for the while , no more bucks..

9

alright then.. i’ll drop you a line as soon as i find out wtf is causing that last din to not-work.

if i hook up the problematic din directly to the core (leaving the other 2 out of the chain) it is working.. so there must be a problem with the connection between 2 of the din’s. where do i look?

any suggestions? :slight_smile: